102,247,681,536,000,000 Unique Character Variations, And Not One Woman

102,247,681,536,000,000 Unique Character Variations, And Not One Woman

Yesterday, Bethesda Blog posted some impressive numbers to let people know just how deep the character customization will be when Brink comes out this Tuesday. 102,247,681,536,000,000 unique character variations, or a still impressive 27,181,440 when not including minor tint variations. But some of us wonder: if they put so much work into letting you personalize your character, why no option for gender?

Character customization in shooters is still a relatively new concept, especially in first-person shooters. Since you rarely see your character in first-person shooters, it makes sense that this feature wouldn’t be very common. But with the rise in popularity of multiplayer, there comes a desire to personalize your character to in some way reflect yourself. And while there are people (both guys and girls) who enjoy playing characters of the opposite gender, most people tend to prefer their character reflect their own gender.

Some guys might not understand what the big deal is, being that there’s no shortage of shooters featuring characters of their own gender. It can be difficult to comprehend how alienating it can be for a genre to so rarely include you, when you haven’t experience that same level of exclusion. There may be a few shooters, like Perfect Dark, where you’re forced to play the campaign as a female character, but even the multiplayer in that game has males to choose from (more males than females, in fact). Male characters in multiplayer shooters are never considered optional or included as an afterthought; they’re mandatory.

For a company to boast how impressively customizable the characters in their first-person shooter are, only to then exclude half the population from having their character be the same gender as themselves, doesn’t exactly say to female gamers “you are welcome here.”

Granted, there are occasionally completely valid reasons for not including playable female characters in a shooter. For example, it would seem out of place to include female soldiers in a game that takes place during a period in history where women weren’t allowed to serve. But these games are generally outnumbered by shooters that take place in modern times, or some alternate/future world (like Brink).

Female agents were also planned for the first Crackdown, but were similarly nixed.

Also, if a developer is on an extremely tight deadline, it can make sense to include only one gender, since creating playable models for both genders requires additional time and work (though you’ll never see a developer choose to nix the males in their shooter). I admit, when Ruffian Games said they were leaving playable female characters out of Crackdown 2 due to time constraints, I initially didn’t believe them. But later it was revealed that they had only 18 months of production time, and an 8 month crunch for final development, which is why the game ended up seeming to many like more of a $60 expansion pack than a proper sequel.

However, Brink developer Splash Damage didn’t have the time crunch issue. In fact, they were so ahead of schedule, they and Bethesda decided to release it a week early. So, what were the reasons for excluding female characters in Brink? In a thread on the Splash Damage forum entitled “Reconsider Female Characters,” artist Paul Greveson explained:

In fact, we did explore female characters in our early concept art. However, given the realities of development, we had a choice between having a wide range of options for male characters, or a much more limited set of clothing options that allow for both genders. We figured it would be the best use of our time to have a big set of quality customisation options for males instead of less and lower quality for females and males.

This reason sounds pretty silly now, in light of 102,247,681,536,000,000 unique character variations. 27,181,440 variations (minus tints) was more important than including both genders? 13,590,720 variations split between the two just wouldn’t have been enough? I just don’t understand what the problem is. It’s especially frustrating because I’m so looking forward to the game otherwise.

Volition recently announced the “Initiation Station,” a bit of free DLC for Saints Row: The Third to be released before the main game, which will allow players to begin customizing their characters in advance. I’m not sure if it will have 102,247,681,536,000,000 unique character variations, but it will have an option for gender. Maybe Splash Damage should take notes.

The author makes a good point. Its great to see such significant amounts of social awareness amongst gamers, especially the guys who have posted so far, I mean does it really matter if women are represented at all? We are living in a time where even the most seemingly trivial detail may actually foster disillusionment, such as in Brink’s choice to supply only Male characters. It proves that customisation is far more important than representation to Bethesda, which begs the question: are game developers out of touch with modern society? The gaming world often seems to think it does not have to succumb to the societal constraints of the real world. Look at Gears of war, it took Epic their third iteration to even begin thinking about women in gaming. Funnily enough the parameter of gender is one of the msot significant parameters we use throughout our lives and yet Bethesda decide that it has no place which will most likely be sold to many millions. Terrible form on their part I have to say. Yes we are entrenched in far too much political correctness but is this really necessary??

May 8, 2011

jcohn

I am surprised there are no women, but at the same time, I can understand that the developers wanted to put their best foot forward for the first game of a brand new IP. If the game sells well, they’ll likely add female characters in the sequel. The way I look at it, they needed to make the best possible game, which unfortunately had the side effect of making them unable to cater to everybody right away. If the gamble pays off, then they have more money and a bit more time to make up for not including things this time around.

its such a shame man, they say the game contains lots of custom parts but non for female. At least ABP has both female and male custom parts:/

May 9, 2011

Nezumi

There’s only one game I’ve ever heard the “A matter of resources excuse” for and actually bought it. In the original Skate, the developers said they wanted to include a female option, but the execs wouldn’t give them the money or time they’d need to implement this accurately — as females have a different center of balance and other factors that would actually make a difference in portraying skateboarding realistically. They said they would definitely include them in the sequel, and true to word, they did.

An FPS or third-person shooter? … Sorry, no. There is nothing about running around and shooting that makes implementing female characters any different from implementing males. Saint’s Row 2 added the option to play a female character and still expanded the game from the original. Freaking Unreal and Quake 2 had female models for multiplayer — and you could use the same models for singleplayer in Unreal. The reason was that you just didn’t think including females mattered. That’s it.

And call me crazy, but when I can fairly call your game less progressive or advanced than Saint’s Row 2 or some of the first modern 3D shooters in existence? I think that’s a bad thing

The trick is not that it is a game without female characters (I’m fine playing HL2 as Gordon Freeman, because it’s his specific story), but that, as a game which sells itself on the basis of detailed customization, the idea that the player might be (or want to play) a female character is not something that the developers were interested in spending their time on. The message they send is clear: they don’t care about 40% of their consumers.

From Wikipedia:

According to a study conducted by the Entertainment Software Association in 2010, 40% of the game playing population is female, and women 18 or older now comprise 33% of all gamers. Also, the percentage of women now playing online has risen to 42%, up several percent since 2004. The same study shows that 46% of game purchasers are female (Entertainment Software Association).

Hank: girls DO play video games. And yes, we DO play First Person Shooters. All way-the-hell-more-than-four of us. And I’ll be happy to mop up your tears and blood when I’m taking down the Combine and your head’s still stuck up a crab’s ass-mouth if you need proof of that.

May 18, 2011

a person

Come on Splash Damage where are the women characters? I want to play as a Female Engineer with a Heavy body size.

September 24, 2011

bilocation

What i think is they should do is either a mammoth exp. or a mammoth dlc to add the female custom option.
No need to erase anything else and why not add plenty of new maps and weapons as well with that in the lot.

I mentioned this same issue on my blog and on my YouTube channel. Bethesda has developed and published games that been very inclusive in the past. I remember being a young girl when Morrowind came out, my guy friend told me “you wouldn’t like this game, it’s not really for girls.” Luckily, I forgave his ignorance, Morrowind became my favorite game of all time, and we are still friends. ^_^

We keep being told that most female gamers play casual games and RPG’s but *every* female gamer I know of plays FPS games. I Reiterate: Every woman and girl I personally know who plays video games has played at least one FPS and enjoyed it. In this instance I think Bethesda should know by now that they have a huge female fanbase and that my publishing Splash Damage’s “Brink” they are letting some of us down. Character customization must include gender and race options unless it conflicts with the story.

January 6, 2012

Chloe

To your first comment, that having female characters would cause the workload to double- this is completely untrue. I am a software developer. While I do not work in the game industry, I’m confident that making a few alterations in graphics does not mean completely re-modeling the character. You would have to be a pretty shitty developer to start from scratch. Practically everything that is important about the character– the way they move, use weapons, etc– stays the same. The only difference is cosmetic, outer-layer graphics.

I beg to differ on your second comment as well, that if no one pointed this out then no one would notice. When I was first looking at Brink, prior to its release, I was really impressed with the unique world and customization– until I realized that it wasn’t that I was missing the toggle from male to female gender, it just wasn’t there. I’m glad this article is bringing attention to it.

For me, gender doesn’t matter when you are playing a standard first person shooter campaign, with a pre-defined character. Most of the time, these characters are men, with a few exceptions like Portal and Mirror’s Edge. That I can live with– most gamers are male, so it makes sense that most game’s protagonists are male. However, when a game prides its self on customization, I want to be able to make a character that I can identify with, so as to get the full immersion experience.

Overall, I think Bethesa games are a lot of fun, not to mention gender-inclusive. The Fallout and Elder Scrolls games are really good at being inclusive, both in designing your character and in having a variety of female NPCs. I found Brink’s exclusivity to be very alienating. I’ll spend my $60 elsewhere.